Organic Processing Vo1.7 #5 - September/October 2010

cles with the new farm bill funding. Other parts are still in the shakeout phase. One of these is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which provides cost-sharing and technical assistance for farmers to implement conservation practices on their lands. In the 2008 farm bill, Congress directed USDA to create a special program within EQIP that focused on transitioning farmers to organic and helping existing organic farmers implement better conservation on their land.

“Processors can

help get the word out

ganic farmers before so there is a learning curve both for the farmers and the agency personnel.

Also, the conservation goals of EQIP have been pretty basic so it’s a little hard to figure out what practices actually raise the bar even higher for the environmental performance of organic growers. Additionally, it’s complicated program in terms of the payment rates and how those payments get distributed to growers. There are a number of institutional and technical obstacles, but those are being worked out. NRCS is currently developing training sessions for its personnel that will hopefully be taking place this fall. This would involve a se-

Cluck.

about EQIP assistance
to the producers they
work with. The whole
organic industry can

benefit from these

There have now been two cycles of opportunity for growers to participate this program, with 50 million dollars set aside each year nationally for this purpose. We’re still getting the results in from the 2010 cycle, but it doesn’t look like all of that money has been used. Many farmers either don’t even know about this resource or they have never worked within the NRCS program before so there is a big learning curve. It does involve a fair amount of paperwork and bureaucracy, so that is an obstacle for farmers. But on the other side, organic agriculture is also new for many employees within NRCS. Many have never really worked with or-

”programs.

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